


Bucky Barnes Defense Squad

by biblionerd07



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 04:03:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2678324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is astounded to find Bucky's gone down in history as a bad boy.  He makes it his mission to fix it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bucky Barnes Defense Squad

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [Bucky Barnes护卫队](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3139421) by [joankindom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/joankindom/pseuds/joankindom)



Steve's been awake ( _thawed?_ ) exactly four days when he sees the shirt. Nick Fury and SHIELD have been sheltering him, sort of, but Steve's not having it; he wouldn't be coddled when he weighed ninety pounds and could only hear out of one ear, and he certainly won't be coddled now. He's gone on _outings_. He paid _two dollars_ for a hotdog from a vendor in Central Park. He's _adapting_.

But. Well. The shirt.

Steve's wandering through a clothing store, somehow ending up in the women's section, and he's looking around desperately for a hint of how to get out—this used to happen to him before, so the familiarity is oddly comforting—when he suddenly notices Bucky's face. He gasps a little, because that came out of nowhere and blindsided him, but then he realizes it's a shirt (some kind of flimsy, undershirt material, but he's noticed people just wear those out and about these days) and there's writing above Bucky's picture. I HEART BAD BOYS.

Steve blinks. Reads it again. Doesn't have to wonder if it's really Bucky; he knows Bucky's face far too well to second-guess that. Bad boys?

“Agent,” he calls, turning his head toward the agent who's been tailing him all day, a woman who's probably only a year or two younger than he is but somehow seems incredibly young to him. Her face falls when she realizes he's known she was there all along.

“Yes, sir?” She steps closer. Her head barely clears his shoulder.

“What is this?”

Her eyes dart between him and the shirt a few times. “Um, Captain Rogers, it's a T-shirt.”

“Yes,” Steve says patiently. “But why does it say I heart bad boys?”

She sort of gulps a little. “I...” She licks her lips. “Some people really like the bad boys, I guess. Not me,” she adds, staring up at him in an earnest way that makes him uncomfortably aware of how close they're standing. “I've always liked the clean-cut type.”

He takes half a step away under the guise of examining the shirt. “But why is Bu...” He can't say Bucky's name out loud. He tries again and only succeeds in a sort of choked noise. This girl doesn't know Bucky. She has, apparently, learned about the Howling Commandos in school, and Steve thinks he maybe heard someone mention something about a cartoon, but she doesn't know that Bucky hates Brussels sprouts or that every time he gets a cold only his left nostril gets plugged up or that he cries the hardest when he's the angriest.

“Why is his picture under it?” He manages to ask. Her eyes are pretty big now, probably at the obvious emotion all over his face.

“Well. Um. He's the quintessential bad boy?”

“He's—” Steve takes a deep breath. “He's not.”

“Captain Rogers, sir, a bad boy isn't really a bad thing, necessarily,” she assures him.

“I know what a bad boy is.” Steve flushes a little when he realizes that could potentially sound kind of sexual. “He's not a bad boy.” He flushes deeper because he's pretty sure at least once some variation of the words _bad boy_ were uttered in their bed and in those cases it was _definitely_ sexual.

“Okay...?” They stare each other down for a minute before she adds, “He's always been considered a bad boy. As long as I can remember. I think it's the whole scowling, broody thing he's got going on.” She gestures at the shirt, and yeah, okay, he's glaring pretty hard.

“He was a _prisoner of war_ ,” Steve doesn't quite shout but it's close. “And then he was still _in_ that war. Of course he was scowling.”

“Alright.” She nods. “Okay. Um. Well. It's just—everyone sort of talks about how he was this, like, lost cause, kind of, and the only thing keeping him out of trouble was you.”

“That is _not true_ ,” Steve grits out. He takes a few deep breaths. This is not her fault. This has been happening since before she was born. And she looks terrified.

“I'm sorry?” She offers.

He takes another breath. “Okay.” He holds up his palms. “I need to leave here now.” He's going to smash this whole fucking display if he stares at it a second longer.

She accompanies him back to SHIELD and he apologizes before he leaves her, promising she won't get fired just because he knew she was there all day. “I always know they're there,” he tells her with a shrug. SHIELD agents get just a touch too wide-eyed around him, even more than the general public because they have some special briefing about him in their orientation, a fact that mortifies him and, he knows, would amuse Bucky to no end.

“Sir,” he says to Fury. “I need to talk to the reporters.”

Fury just stares for a moment. “About?”

“There are some fundamental inaccuracies with the way history has been recorded.”

Fury takes a breath and then doesn't say anything for a second. “What?”

“I need to correct some lies,” Steve says firmly. Fury kind of blinks that one eye and then gives Steve a look that Steve can't really decipher because Fury only really has about two looks and he only has one eye, besides, and that makes everything harder to understand.

“What are these lies?” He finally asks carefully.

“Bucky is _not_ a bad boy.”

There is a long, silent pause where Fury gives Steve a look he can read but doesn't care for much. “You want to hold a press conference because people think your buddy was a bad boy? Rogers, Barnes has gone down in history as a sex symbol. Is that really a problem?”

And. Okay, wow. That's...something. “Sex symbol?” Steve echoes. Fury raises his eyebrow.

“Is that really a problem?” He repeats, and a little ball of jealousy in Steve's chest declares it a pretty big fucking problem but another part of him thinks of _course_ Bucky should be seen as a sex symbol but mostly he just feels incredibly confused.

“I—I don't like that people don't know the truth about him,” Steve settles on.

“Mm-hm. Captain Rogers, there are more pressing problems in this world than your dead friend's image.”

Steve's slapped his hand down on the table before he even realizes he's going to do it. “No,” he snarls. “You don't get to stand there and act like he isn't important. Your whole organization's been kissing my ass from the second you woke me up in that terrible farce of my time and now I am asking you for _one fucking thing_ and you are not going to deny it.” Fury looks surprised and Steve doesn't care. “I'm calling the first reporter's name I see in the paper,” he shoots over his shoulder as he stalks out.

 _Your dead friend_ , he hears ringing in his ears. His fists are clenched so tightly he thinks he might break a finger. He knows he's being unreasonable; Bucky would find this whole thing absolutely hilarious, and he would be cockily thrilled about going down in history as a sex symbol. But the fact that these people are exploiting Bucky—they don't even _know_ , they don't know _anything_. A lost cause, the agent had said; the only thing keeping him in line was _Steve_ , and isn't that just the most laughable thing he's ever heard?

He makes good on his threat and calls some reporter from the New York Times to come talk to him. It turns into more than one reporter and Steve finds himself in front of a host of reporters and cameras. Good. He wants this out.

“I have something very important to discuss with you all,” Steve says seriously. “And that is the way your modern media has handled the image of James Buchanan Barnes.”

The excited buzzing turns confused. “Bucky?” Someone asks. Steve nods.

“I recently became aware of the fact that Bucky has been portrayed in the time since his death as a 'bad boy.' It isn't true.”

The crowd of reporters is mostly silent now. One brave soul pipes up, “Does it really matter?”

A part of the podium snaps off under Steve's hand. He clears his throat. “It matters,” he insists. “It matters because—you people, you don't...don't you care? Don't you care about getting it right?” He's getting louder now, definitely louder than is appropriate. “You're just going to use the image of a war hero and you're not going to bother to look into who he is—um, was?” He cringes at the past tense. “Bucky was not some _lost cause_. He was our class president. He was a good student, he was good at sports, he was popular. He loved science and anything science fiction. He was respectful to his parents and he adored his little sisters. He helped little old ladies carry their groceries up the stairs. He'd—he'd give up anything to help someone out. Doesn't anyone _care_?”

He's yelling by the end, because there's a rushing sound in his ears. They act like Steve's so great, but they really only care about Captain America, not Steve Rogers. They don't seem to realize that there would _be_ no Captain America if not for Bucky Barnes saving Steve Rogers.

Steve's throat is closing up in a too-familiar way. “He was—” He shakes his head. “I was the bad influence. I was the one getting us into fights. Okay? Can we just...can everyone please remember that?”

Fury is suddenly at his side, firmly leading him away from the podium while someone else makes an apologetic statement about Captain Rogers having other commitments to see to. Fury leads him away from the group of reporters and sits him down on a bench. Steve's hands are shaking.

“Cap,” Fury says quietly. “I'm sorry for the disrespect. It's hard for us to remember this is all recent for you. To all of us, it's...” He shrugs apologetically. “It's a history lesson.”

Steve cradles his head in his hands. “Three weeks,” he whispers. “Three weeks ago we played cards in my tent with some of the other guys and he cheated Dugan out of his last pack of smokes and traded them for a chocolate bar that he gave to me. You can't—he's not just some punchline, some face to put on a shirt.”

“I'm sorry, Captain.” Fury puts his hand on Steve's shoulder for just a second before standing up. Steve doesn't feel all that comforted, truth be told.

Steve goes home. He breaks a few punching bags. He sees people wearing the shirts still. He hears a news snippet talking about some Hollywood actor getting caught with drugs being “a regular Bucky Barnes.” He asks a SHIELD legal adviser about slander actions and only gets a sad look in return.

But then, one day, while Steve's out for a walk, because he honestly doesn't have much else to do with his time, he sees Bucky's face splayed across someone's chest. He braces himself for the anger, but then he realizes the words are different. BUCKY BARNES DEFENSE SQUAD.

“Excuse me,” he calls to the woman, trying to chase her down in the most non-threatening way possible, which is actually kind of difficult now that he's the size of a house. She turns expectantly and then gulps when she realizes who he is. “Your shirt?” He can't really form a coherent question. She blinks bemusedly for a second, glancing down, and then her eyes go wide.

“Oh!” She says. “Yeah. See, um, there's an online group. I mean, all the Howling Commandos have fan clubs, of course, and most of us in the Bucky Barnes Fan Club are history buffs so we read enough to know he wasn't a bad boy. And then when you held that press conference, that really solidified it for us, so.” She shrugs almost sheepishly. “I guess it's a little dorky?”

“ _No_ ,” Steve breathes. “No, it's—it's the best. Can I buy one?”

“Can you buy...?” They both look down at her shirt and Steve realizes there's more on it than just Bucky's face; the picture of Bucky is bordered, and there are little people holding shields all along the borders. It's pretty intricate; the people are of all different sizes and ethnicities, and he notes with delight that there's a little drawing of him, front and center, a little bigger than everyone else, with the word _President_ underneath. “Wow.” She laughs awkwardly. “Captain America wants to buy my fanart.”

“You drew this?” He asks. She shrugs and nods, ducking her head a little. “I love it,” he says firmly. “I want to buy at least seven.”

“Seven?” She squeaks.

“One for each day,” he tells her with a nod. She gapes at him but they end up exchanging information and soon he's the proud owner of the shirts and an internet name for the Bucky Barnes Fan Club message boards. Everyone seems to know who he is, despite his pseudonym, and he regularly gets comments on his posts about how people “seriously cannot” (no one ever explains _what_ they cannot) and how cute it is that he's part of his friend's fan club. He's a member of the fan clubs of all the Howling Commandos and Peggy, too, and there's a whole big article about it in the Washington Post.

It's just sort of something that becomes part of his life, something he stops really thinking about, answering questions about Bucky's favorite candy and whether Morita or Falsworth snored louder, and then suddenly Bucky's _alive_ and Bucky's _there_ and Steve gets to see him every time he opens his eyes. Steve's in the kitchen one morning, making pancakes, when he hears a weird noise come from the bedroom.

“Buck?” He calls. “You dying on me?” He keeps his tone light but he's ready to completely abandon the pancakes.

“Steve.” Bucky is still too quiet and Steve jumps a little because seriously, he came out of nowhere. “What is this?”

He's holding up the BUCKY BARNES DEFENSE SQUAD shirts. All seven of them. He's making a face at Steve and it's so confused and so adorable Steve has to actually fight with himself over answering the question and just wrapping Bucky up in his arms and snuggling into him for the rest of his life.

“They're from your fanclub.” Steve decides to go with a flippant tone, turning back to check the pancakes.

“My fanclub.”

“You didn't know you had a fanclub?” Steve makes himself shrug nonchalantly.

“And you're a member of my fanclub?” Bucky asks flatly. Steve feels the tips of his ears turning red and he mumbles. “Don't mumble,” Bucky commands, irritated. It's an incredibly familiar command. Steve licks his lips.

“I'm, uh, I was actually voted the president after the last president stepped down.”

He can feel Bucky's stare on the back of his head and tries to pretend he doesn't. He starts whistling innocently as he flips the pancakes. And then Bucky starts cracking up laughing.

“You're the _president_ of my fanclub?” He gasps. “Jesus, Stevie. How long has that been going on?”

“Um. Like a year?”

Bucky stops laughing. “When you thought I was dead.”

Steve shrugs again. “Still the president now that I know you're alive.” He looks up and gives Bucky a sheepish smile. “I mean, there was a trivia test and...well, let's just say no one's getting that title off me any time soon.” One of the answers for the trivia test had been wrong, actually, and Steve had corrected it, but he's not going to say that. Steve also designed the newest batch of T-shirts with a drawing of Bucky with his metal arm, but he's not sure Bucky's ready to hear about that, either.

Bucky's smiling fondly at him, but he laughs and shakes his head. “God, how did I get saddled with such a sap?”

“Well, it's just, when I first woke up, everyone thought you were a bad boy. They called you—they called you a sex symbol.”

“And you're saying I'm not?” Bucky arches an eyebrow, but his mouth is turned a little bit downward. The 'bad boy' thing is a touchy subject these days.

“I went a little overboard,” Steve admits. “I held a press conference and I broke a table.”

Bucky snorts at him and rolls his eyes. “My hero.” He does grab Steve's ass, though, and Steve sees that as a bit of a thank you.

Two days later, when Steve brings in the paper, he's pulled up short by the front page. There's a big photo of Bucky, and he's actually _smiling_ , something he hasn't done in a photo since about 1943. It's a full-body shot, to show off the way he's decked out _head to toe_ in Captain America merchandise—literally, from his hat to his shirt to his pants to his shoes, plus, the caption adds helpfully, when he pulled out his wallet to pay for his coffee, that was Captain America, too. The article speculates about his underwear, which makes Steve snort because he knows rather personally that Bucky wears plain white shorts, same as Steve.

The best part is the quote they'd gotten from Bucky in the body of the article. _When asked why he was wearing all the Captain America apparel, Barnes smiled widely. “I heard some people have been calling themselves his biggest fan,” he said with a shrug. “And I couldn't let anyone else have my title.”_

___“You're Captain America's biggest fan?” A bystander asked._  
  
_“We're each others' biggest fans. Always have been.” Barnes shrugged. “Always will be."_


End file.
